Clarice the thoughts here about PQA are just my opinions. I hope they help even a little. They are those water wings I talked about.
– it is a good decision to videotape; it’s painful but you will see things.
– the more you PQA the more it shifts from your brain into your body where real teaching occurs. Think of each drowning session as a shutting off of your mind and a trust in the cells of your body to do what is instinctual and therefore best.
– do as much PQA as you can. You learn it by doing it, not by talking about it or thinking about it.
– ask three kids to count how many times you say the structures, one kid for each target structure. Try to get at least 25-30 reps on each one in a 50 min. class period. Stay with the target structures at all costs. Don’t ever say even one sentence that doesn’t have a target structure in it.
– after you tell the kids what each structure means and gesture it, start in with questions. The mechanics of PQA are simple – you use the question words to ask kids questions about anything you can think of connected to the target structures and see where their cute answers go. If the discussion is not in some way connected to the target structure, you don’t talk about it.
– follow the energy thus created with a kind of respect for the very concept of language. Don’t shout it. Vary your tonalities.
– do Jody’s chair thing. I don’ t know where it is but I bet Carla can find it.
– if the structure is “smells bad” you look at a kid who can “go there” and ask him if he smells.
– don’t introduce new words – use only words that they know.
– go slowest. Now go slower than that. (The Teran Principle)
– go ahead and drown. The kids won’t know you are drowing. Then come up for air. It will happen. It is like a miracle. Follow the direction the questions take you in, saying at least one of the structures in each sentence. Now go slower than slowest.
– consciously be appreciative of the things they say.
If I had to say it in a few words, in my opinion you are drowing for two big reasons: you don’t respect, none of us does, SLOW, and you also sneak too many new words into the PQA. Don’t do that.
We’ll get this. Maybe this will help a little for tomorrow. Bon courage!